NetBSD on NEC MobilePro 790 - Install Issue

Grab the file attached to this post. Boot up your NetBSD. Log in as root and do:

# pkg_add figlet-2.2.5.tgz

and let's see what happens



Attachments
----------------
figlet-2.2.5.tgz (124KB - 1 downloads)

Makes sense.....sounds good....





Aye, aye, cap'n TZ......

Will do tomorrow, as I left my 790 at work....and report back.

Thanks!

Just tried to get figlet installed and run....

However, when I connected my CF card with NetBSD installed on it to my laptop to copy the figlet file over to CF card, some weird things happened....

First, I see two icons on desktop for my CF card.

When I click on the icons (separately) the window that opens shows nothing in it. Thought I should see all the NetBSD items?

When I tried to copy the figlet file over to CF card, it won't let me.

So, to make sure my card is OK, I put it back in my 790 and booted NetBSD....and it works fine.....

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Uh oh.

Well first of all, I do not know how you have your card formatted, but you will not be able to see a NetBSD partition or its files from a Windows computer. It will appear as a drive that is not formatted. Be careful not to format it! That will erase all your NetBSD data.

To get files to your BSD installation you have a few options.

If you have a DOS partition on your CF card along with your NetBSD partition, you can put the package in that partition and access it from NetBSD with /dos or wherever you told it to mount during the installation.

If you don't have a DOS partition, your best bet would be to use whichever slot you're not using for the main CF card (CF slot or PCMCIA slot with CF adapter) to use a second CF card formatted for Fat32. You would copy the package file to that CF card and then insert it into your MP while running NetBSD and mount the corresponding device (probably /dev/wd1e) to a folder of your choosing (such as /mnt, /mnt2, or /dos, depending on how the system is set up).

Another option is to set up an ftp server on the same local network as your NetBSD setup and download it that way.

Let me know if you need detailed steps on any of the methods.

Sorry, didn't mention that card is formatted for NetBSD....

Also, didn't mention the laptop I was using earlier is my thinkpad x1 carbon running Manjaro Linux Cinnamon......(really like laptop and Manjaro...)

So, was surprised that I had issue, but assume linux doesn't recognize the NetBSD formatting...

Thanks for your suggestions....I should have though of using another CF card.....shows I've been working too hard this month at work....10 - 12 hour days, doing very complicated tasks....
need some rest time I think....

Hoping that things will start to quiet down now as I've completed several major tasks as of today....

As always, thank you for your help!

Will report back later.....

Ah, I should have guessed you'd have a Linux box! Excellent.

In that case, Linux won't be as rude as Windows and try and format your CF card, but I haven't had good luck accessing NetBSD partitions from Linux either. So, best bet is as you surmise, using a second CF card.

Thanks for your input....

Was exhausted last evening....so, decide to wait to try until now....

Put the second card in and booted up NetBSD.......

Unfortunately, it booted up to the NetBSD installer screen!

Could it be that it was confused by the second card in the PC card slot or does it mean my NetBSD install got borked somehow?

I will reboot and check the boot program settings again and try again to get to NetBSD and try out figlet......

Sigh......


UPDATE

Think I know what is happening HPCBoot is set to boot the netbsd.gz file instead of the other file you use after installing netBSD.....

Will try that now....

To mount the second CF card would I do:

mount -o /dev/wd1e /mnt/xxxx?

Or ? (been a long time since I had to do this....)

thanks

sigh....

UPDATE 2

When all else fails, read instructions....

Looked at the NetBSD 790 Install Instructions again....

mount /dev/wd1e /mnt/card

Voila!

Edited by ArchiMark 2023-01-27 8:09 PM

OK, was finally able to try this now....

Got the following:

pkg_add: NetBSD/mipsel 5.2 (pkg) vs. NetBSD/mipsel 4.0.1 (this host)


Sigh..........

That looks like you ended up with a 4.0.1 install instead of 5.2...? Or maybe you just booted a 4.0.1 kernel...?

You could double check that your netbsd-GENERIC.gz indeed is from 5.2 and make sure when you're logging in it says "NetBSD 5.2" (or type uname -a and make sure it says 5.2).

Thanks, had to use the 'wayback machine' and go all the way back to page 3 of this epic thread and found our posts....

You suggested I go back to v4 and I did that.......

Meanwhile, you said you would sorting out other newer versions.....

So, yes, I am on 4.0.1.....




Should I move on up to 5.2?

Oh. Did you have a problem with 5.2? I can't really remember now. If you can move to 5.2, that is the newest version that I have found to be "fully working" and that's the version I'm building packages for. It just catches the tail end of the oldest pkgsrc archive that exists (2013Q1).

I just went back and re-read...whew this thread is a doozy!

I guess it's really up to you if you want to jump over to 5.2 or hang out on 4 or wait for 9.3 or what. I'm planning to keep building as many packages as I can for 5.2 and putting them on my server (so they can be pulled down with pkgin). I don't have much hope of a modern browser working with SSL but who knows. Maybe after we get a good baseline of stuff built we can creep forward and see what we can upgrade.

Kain and I are still discussing how to attack getting the 9.3 problems looked at, but I have no definite timeline on that.

You got that right.....





If I have time, I might install 5.2, so that I can use your packages....

Hopefully, you and Kain will be successful with getting newer version working well...

Keep us posted....

Ok, I hope you do. Let me know if I can help in any way.

When I feel up to it....sometime soon....I will try installing 5.2.....
Hope I can do it this time myself, but will let you know if questions.
THANKS!